What Is Shadow lobbying?

Another Hitler? How world leaders see Donald Trump

Listen To Prof. James A. Thurber on The Diane Rehm Show

Senate Republican leaders say they won’t hold hearings for a Supreme Court justice nominee. This makes an Obama appointment before the end of his presidency highly unlikely. What an eight-member Supreme Court could mean for key cases to be decided this year.

Guests

Jeffrey Rosen president and CEO, The National Constitution Center; author of the forthcoming book, "Louis D. Brandeis: American Prophet" (June 2016)

James Thurber professor and director, Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies at American University; author of "Obama in Office: The First Two Years"; co-editor with Antoine Yoshinaka of "American Gridlock: The Sources, Character and Impact of Political Polarization"

Nina Totenberg legal affairs correspondent, NPR.

Sanders, Trump won't be able to keep their promises. And that matters.

Prof. James A. Thurber to testify before the Senate Budget Committee

Senator Mike Enzi (R-WY), Chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, will hold a hearing Wednesday, February 3, 2016 at 10:00am focused on spending on unauthorized and expired programs.

Testifying will be Congressional Budget Office (CBO) Director Keith Hall, Jessica Tollestrup, Specialist with the Congressional Research Service (CRS), Dr. Paul Posner, Director of George Mason University’s Center on the Public Service, and Dr. James Thurber, Director of the Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies at American University.

WHAT:
Hearing on Spending on Unauthorized Programs

WHO:
Dr. Keith Hall
Director
Congressional Budget Office

Dr. Paul Posner
Director - Center on the Public Service School of Policy
George Mason University

Dr. James Thurber
Director - Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies
American University.

WHERE:
Dirksen Senate Office Building – Room 608

WHEN:
10:00am – Wednesday, Feb. 3, 2016

The Legacy of President Obama

Listen to panelists James A. Thurber, Andrew Rudalevige; Thomas Brackett Reed Professor of Government, Bowdoin College, and Glenn Cummings, USM's President (Glenn served in President Obama's Education Dept as a Deputy Secretary. He was also a former Speaker of the Maine House) discuss Obama’s legacy on Maine public radio’s “Maine Calling”

Ghazal P. Nadi and Katie Vinopal are the recipients of the 2016 Gill Family Foundation Scholarship

Ghazal P. Nadi is a doctoral candidate in Political Science at American University’s School of Public Affairs. Her research interests include democratization, authoritarian regime durability and quantitative methodology. Her Dissertation looks at institutional foundations of regime stability and fiscal transparency in hybrid regimes with a focus on Middle East and North Africa.

Our normative assumption is that only democracies are transparent, however, an examination of fiscal transparency in hybrid regimes -which are distinguished from outright authoritarians because they combine both democratic and autocratic characteristics- demonstrates that hybrid regimes produce fairly open budgets, and sometimes even outperform democracies. Using an original index of regime typology and cross-national time-series statistical analysis, I show that among hybrid regimes competitive authoritarians with higher dependence on assistance from International Financial Institutions are fiscally more transparent compared to hegemonic electoral authoritarians. Due to their institutional capabilities competitive authoritarians are better able to implement budget transparency conditionality attached to international loans and assistance packages. The more fiscal information is released by the government, the more it needs to demonstrate efficient use of public resources because the failure to do so increases the risk of losing power in electoral cycles which are fiercely contested in competitive authoritarian regimes. These results imply that by fostering and sponsoring budget transparency, international donors can build the necessary and often lacking structures for government accountability and good governance in hybrid regimes

Katie Vinopal is a PhD candidate in the Department of Public Administration and Policy. Her research interests include education, health, and safety net policies and administration, especially as they relate to social inequality. After receiving her BS in Mathematics from Xavier University in Cincinnati, Ohio, she worked at the Urban Institute for more than two years. There she conducted research on issues, policies, and systems impacting low-income individuals and families. Katie also worked at the Food Research and Action Center, where she sought to better understand and improve the quality of public nutrition programs through outreach, technical assistance, and research. Katie has been honored with the 2015 NASPAA Staats Emerging Scholar Award, the Neil and Ann Kerwin Doctoral Fellowship, and the Charles H. Levine Doctoral Student Research Award. She has taught Administrative Politics as well as the Math and Economics Boot Camp for incoming MPP students.

Dissertation Description: Research across the social sciences has long sought to better understand how various inputs—from parents, schools, neighborhoods, policies, programs, and others—are determined and combined to produce child outcomes. One such input, parental time and involvement, has been the object of considerable empirical attention because of its importance for the cognitive and social development of children. The proposed dissertation seeks to better understand three new aspects of parental time and involvement. Essay one takes an institutional approach to investigate whether racial representation among teachers affects a parent’s decision to become involved at his or her child’s school. Essay two focuses on the effectiveness of state-level policies designed to protect parents’ rights to take time off from work to attend children’s school meetings or events. Finally, essay three builds on existing research that estimates differences by socioeconomic status in the amount of time parents spend with their children by investigating two new dimensions of parent-child time: shared time when both parents are present, and individual time when no siblings are present.

American Gridlock: The Sources, Character, and Impact of
Political Polarization

Professor James Thurber Discusses the Republican Debate on the Diane Rehm Show

Hear Professor Thurber; Susan Page, Washington bureau chief of USA Today; and David Folkenflik, media correspondent at NPR and author of "Murdoch's World: The Last of the Old Media Empires", discuss the latest GOP Debate and the role of televised debates in the election process

Presidential Pardons

Recent Article Published by Professors Thurber and Griffin

Profs. Thurber and Griffin co-authored an article titled "Teaching Public Policy Advocacy by Combining Academic Knowledge and Professional Wisdom," in the most recent issue of Interest Groups & Advocacy.

Lobbying and Ethics Laws

James Thurber talked about lobby reform and ethical issues regarding members of Congress. He spoke about previous efforts to change lobbying practices on Capitol Hill and discussed potential change in the 114th Congress. James Thurber is the author of numerous books on politics and government and served as a legislative assistant to former senators Bill Brock, Adlai Stevenson III, and Hubert Humphrey.

This forum was part of American University's biannual workshop (PAAI) focusing on lobbying strategies used in the nation's capital.

AU President Neil Kerwin Speaks at PAAI

Obama Heads to Asia

Prof. Thurber appeared on Sunday's NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt to discuss President Obama's second term and focus on international issues as he begins a three country trip to China, Myanmar, and Australia

Divided Government

Prof. James Thurber appeared on C-SPAN's Washington Journal this week. He talked about how President Obama and a Republican-controlled Congress might operate during the 114th Congress. He also discussed how previous administrations have worked with opposition party-controlled congresses.

Lobbying and Advocacy in the US and the EU

World Bank headquarters in Washington, DC

Congressional scholars, including Thomas Mann of the Brookings Institution, Norm Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute and American University's James Thurber endorse plea to keep the Office of Congressional Ethics.

Federal Radio FED Talk

James A. Thurber and other FED Talk guests discuss call for reform of the Congressional ethics process.

Congressional Ethics Panel on C-SPAN

C-SPAN Panelists, including Norm Ornstein and James A. Thurber talked about American voters' perceptions of their lawmakers in Washington and how more stringent ethics standards could improve politicians' standing with their constituents.

Dee Dee Myers Visits CCPS Institutes

Former Whitehouse Press Secretary Dee Dee Myers spoke to students of the Campaign Management Institute and Public Affairs and Advocacy Institute in January.

2013 Hatfield Scholar Award Presented to Professor James A. Thurber

Professor James A. Thurber is the recipient of the 2013 Hatfield Scholar Award. The award is given by Portland State University faculty in recognition of an exceptional scholar whose career best exemplifies the Hatfield commitment to public interest and public service.

The JFK Assassination Anniversary: Public Perceptions And Political Realities- The Diane Rehm Show

Listen to panelists James Thurber, Robert Dallek; presidential historian, Larry Sabato; founder and director, University of Virginia Center for Politics, and Bill Minutaglio; professor of journalism at the University of Texas, Austin discuss the JFK assassination on the eve of the 50th anniversary.

Unequal Justice: the Relentless Rise of the 1% Court

Andy MacCracken appeared on C-SPAN’s Washington Journal to discuss his organization’s efforts to engage young voters on a national level about a variety of issues including the national debt, fiscal responsibility, college affordability and youth voter turnout.

Read Prof. Thurber’s comments in the latest edition of American Magazine

The Man Behind the Fiscal Cliff

Peter G. Peterson

Also read James A. Thurber's comments in a recent story by NPR's Frank James on campaign finance.

Forget Creativity: Can Lobbying Be Taught?

Learn about lobbying schools and Prof. Thurber’s views on lobbying education in this piece in The Washington Post.

Professor James Thurber Discusses Election Outcomes on the Diane Rehm Show

Hear Professor Thurber, Andrew Kohut; director of the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press and Michelle Bernard; founder and president of the Bernard Center for Women, Politics and Public Policy as they analyze the results.

As the 2012 presidential race heads for the home stretch, a new poll analysis by American University and Patchwork Nation suggests that a popular/electoral vote split is a very real possibility – with key aging Midwestern counties giving the president an edge in the race to 270 electoral votes. The findings come from an examination of the latest Pew Research Center presidential poll using the Patchwork Nation demographic/geographic breakdown of U.S. counties

By most every account, Republican nominee Mitt Romney shook up the presidential race last week with a strong showing in the first presidential debate. By early last week, polls from Gallup to Pew seemed to indicate the race had changed.

The breakdown, released here in conjunction with American University, shows a big surge in the exurbs for Romney and some growth of support in the big cities. President Obama, meanwhile, still appears to hold the lead in the crucial suburban counties and to hold great strength in the counties that are a heavy with college students.

Independents and Swing Voters: Who are they, and will they decide the election?

Read Prof. Thurber’s remarks on lobbying in the financial industry in a recent story in Deutsche Welle.

What’s Wrong with Congress and What Should Be Done About It?

Agony, Angst, and the Failure of the Supercommittee

Professor Thurber’s latest publication, “Agony, Angst, and the Failure of the Supercommittee," can be found in Extensions, a journal of the Carl Albert Congressional and Research Studies Center at The University of Oklahoma.

How The Electoral College Works

Diane Rehm (Photo courtesy of WAMU)

Kennedy Center Celebrates the 50th anniversary of JFK's inauguration.

Prof. James Thurber was featured on a panel at the Kennedy Center with actor Stacy Keach, star of the award winning play Frost/Nixon. The two spoke at an event as part of the Kennedy Center's celebration of the 50th anniversary of President Kennedy's inauguration.

Thurber Scholarship Endowment

Carol Whitney

It is with a heavy heart that we share with the CCPS community the passing of Carol Whitney. Carol was a program coordinator for the Campaign Management Institute for many years. In that capacity she taught and inspired hundreds of CMI students. Condolences may be sent to her family at:

Taking CMI or PAAI for credit this January?

Research

Featured Faculty

Anita McBride, Executive-in-Residence, has a long and distinguished career in American politics and government. Most recently, she served as Assistant to President George W. Bush and Chief of Staff to First Lady Laura Bush.

30 Years of Winning Strategy

Now in its thirtieth year, the Campaign Management Institute has become an internationally recognized dynamic curriculum drawing students from across the globe to learn and practice the art and science of campaigning.